For reasons too tedious to mention I had to find some background information on the Bassett Road Murders this morning. I found this on the Police website, via The Unscrambled Web:
The discovery on Saturday 7 December 1963 of two bullet ridden bodies in a house at 115 Bassett Road, Remuera, saw the start of an intensive police inquiry which was to create a sensation with the evidence it uncovered.
Frederick George Walker, a 38 year old commercial traveller and Kevin James Speight, a 26 year old seaman, had been shot several times with large calibre bullets and the house ransacked.
Walker's body was found lying on the floor and Speight was on a nearby bed.
Detective Chief Inspector Robert Walton (later Commissioner of Police), led a team of 32 detectives who began an immediate search of the area, but no weapon was found. Medical examination suggested the deaths had possibly occurred on the previous Wednesday or Thursday and early investigations revealed a possible motive, when it became known that both victims were believed to be sly groggers. The illegal manufacture and sale of liquor was at this time a lucrative business. Large cities created an ideal climate for syndicates to develop and it was thought one of these syndicates may have decided to eliminate some opposition.
The investigation was a copy book example of intricate, detailed police work and a wide net was spread in an attempt to find early vital clues. As well as an inventory of the house contents, all known criminals and fringe hangers-on were interviewed and special murder squads built up a card index of relevant facts, report and line of inquiry. All exits from the country were sealed and ships and aircraft watched.
The first real clue was when Dominion Laboratory Scientist, Dr D. F. Nelson pinpointed a .45 calibre machine gun as the possible murder weapon.
The major breakthrough came when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Finance, Mr R. Muldoon, M.P., escorted to Mr Walton a man he believed could aid the investigation. This man was the first to implicate John Gillies in the crime.
The pressure of the inquiry against the local criminal fraternity initially produced little, as a cone of silence fell over the city.
In an effort to overcome this Mr Walton announced he and his team were prepared to go anywhere at any time, to talk to people who could help the investigation and who also required secrecy.
With the knowledge that he was now a prime suspect, Gillies returned to the CIB office accompanied by two lawyers. He refused to answer questions and was released under close surveillance. Slowly, a case was building against another suspect, Ronald Jorgensen and gradually links between the two began to appear.
Another breakthrough occurred when Jorgensen's carefully prepared alibi was broken. So discreet were these enquiries into Jorgensen that he had no idea he was even suspected until he was arrested, at the same time as Gillies on 31 December 1963, only 24 days after the bodies had been discovered.
The murder weapon however had not been found, and neither Gillies nor Jorgensen would help to locate it, or even describe it.
The murder trial opened on 24 February 1964. Both men denied the charge, although Gillies did admit to acquiring a machine gun for his own protection. They were convicted by a jury who took only four hours to reach a verdict. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and the verdict was upheld on appeal.
Unsurprisingly, what the Police website fails to mention is what was to me and to many others at the time the most extraordinary aspect of this case. This is that, before Jorgenson and Gillies were charged, they were taken by the Police to a remote location and beaten up over several hours.
Prior to this incident I and many others had what will now seem a silly, sentimental, middle-class view of the New Zealand Police. Over the next two decades, through Vietnam and apartheid protests, that perspective changed, and has continued to change until the present day. Who now believes that the New Zealand Police Force is the finest and most incorruptible in the world?
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